Cleco Corporation Affirms Confidence In Response to Rating Agency's Action.

Energy Editors/Business Editors

PINEVILLE, La.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 2003

Cleco Corp. (NYSE, PCX: CNL) affirmed confidence in its regulated and unregulated operations Monday following a decision by Moody's Investors Service to lower the debt ratings of both Cleco Corp. and Cleco Power LLC, its regulated utility.

Moody's lowered Cleco Corp.'s senior unsecured debt rating from Baa1 to Baa3 with a negative outlook and Cleco Power's senior secured ratings from A2 to A3 and its senior unsecured debt rating from A3 to Baa1 with stable outlooks. All of the ratings remain investment grade.

Cleco President and CEO David Eppler said, "We fully agree with Moody's assessment of the stable outlook for our utility. Cleco Power remains a vital, successful business that accounts for approximately 75 percent of our business and continues to produce steady earnings and cash flow.

"We also share the agency's concerns over the deterioration in overall market conditions and the credit quality of the four counterparties to tolling agreements tied to our unregulated power plants. However, while these plants may be in an overbuilt market, we are executing a plan to mitigate those risks. We are aggressively pursuing a number of options we think will allow us to extract the maximum value from our unregulated assets," Eppler said. "And the fact remains that all four counterparties continue to perform their obligations under the tolling agreements."

Cleco Corporation is a regional energy services company headquartered in Pineville, La. It operates a regulated electric utility company that serves more than 261,000 customers across Louisiana. Cleco also operates an unregulated midstream energy business that has approximately 2,100 megawatts of generating capacity. For more information about Cleco, visit www.cleco.com.

Please note: This news release contains forward-looking statements about future results and circumstances with respect to which there are many risks and uncertainties, including the weather and other natural phenomena, state and federal legislative and regulatory initiatives, the timing and extent of changes in commodity prices and interest rates, the operating performance of Cleco Power's and Midstream's facilities, and the other risks and uncertainties more fully described in the company's latest Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking statements.